Let's Buck This Trend

Build a legacy, not just a play thing.

- Ian Ridley

WELL, in thewords of IanDury’s classicsong, Biller-icay were doing very well until midweek when those resilient lads from the estimable Dulwich Hamlet overturned a result from a few days earlier and won at New Lodge in another twist to the Ryman Premier League promotion tale.

Thanks to owner Glenn Tamplin’s money-bearing arrival, Ricay have gatecrashed the play-off party, and following yesterday’s 2-0 win against Leiston, now sit just two points outside the top five despite being so far adrift for so long. Even if they don’t go up this year, though, you suspect the bookmakers will have them as immediate favourites to win the title next season.

Naturally, there will be resentment among other clubs. There always is when a sugar daddy turns up and creates such a buzz that a few hundred through the gate turn into 1,302 for the Hamlet return – 2,805 having been at Champion Hill for the meeting between the two clubs four days earlier. The one-man funding model has a long and mixed history at all levels of the game.

Sledgehammer

My own experience was at Weymouth when chairman, and we had dragged the club up by its bootstraps off the field, Steve Claridge doing it on the field, when a hotelier named Martyn Harrison appeared and made it plain he could manage the rest without us.